Final answer:
Greenwashing refers to deceptive marketing practices where companies emphasize their products' environmental benefits while ignoring or minimizing their actual environmental impacts. The FTC regulates these claims to ensure factual accuracy, but some exaggerations are allowed, reminding consumers to beware ('Caveat emptor').
Step-by-step explanation:
The use of misleading marketing claims about the ecological benefits of products is commonly referred to as greenwashing. Greenwashing occurs when a company or organization spends more time and money on marketing themselves as environmentally friendly than on actually minimizing their environmental impact. It is a deceptive use of green PR or green marketing. The term greenwashing involves presenting a favourable environmental image to the public, while the actual practices fail to meet these green claims.
For instance, a company may advertise their product as eco-friendly but ignore significant ecological impacts such as methane emissions from natural gas extraction. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plays a role in checking the factual claims about product performance, and while exaggerated or ambiguous language and images may be permitted in advertising, outright untrue facts are not allowed. Consumers are advised to heed the Latin phrase, Caveat emptor, meaning "let the buyer beware," as a reminder to critically evaluate environmental claims made by companies.